Bible Stories part 5: 1 Samuel

[tiredstars]

I'm back to reading the Bible, with quite a few thoughts on the first book of Samuel. Previous installments of the exciting Biblical saga can be found here1 Samuel is a slightly frustrating book. It tells the story of Samuel, Saul and David. The overall story is fairly clear, as are the characters, but the details are frustratingly unclear.

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[dissident_hope]

Obviously the HoBibblyBoble is such a mismatch of stories, half-truth histories from skewed perspectives, & outright fantasy; but a while back I watched an interesting BBC4 documentary where a historian was studying some very ancient Hebrew scrolls which are currently rejected by the Jewish leadership because they talk about what is effectively a she-god who seems to have been thought of as the wife or partner of the modern mono-God. It seems to have been in the transition era when many tribes still paid homage to the Earth-mother figure worshipped across much of the very ancient world, & at first she was integrated into Israelite belief, but then the those particularly worshipful of her were sidelined until mono-God took over. The programme showed how some very ancient carvings & scultpture could be interpreted as showing both God & this female companion deity together. It think He was depicted with a sort of sky-based theme, & She with the whole forest & animal aura.